🚀 [Feature]: Add ReleaseType input for explicit release control

[MariusStorhaug]

The action now supports explicit control over the release type through the new ReleaseType input parameter. You can specify whether to create a stable release, prerelease, or skip releasing entirely—without relying on automatic detection from PR state and labels. The workflow has also been restructured into three phases (initialization, publishing, cleanup) that run conditionally, improving efficiency when only cleanup is needed.

• Part of 🩹 [Patch]: When a PR is closed, but not merged, fast forward to cleanup of prereleases. Process-PSModule#73
• Fixes [Feature]: Add ReleaseType input to Publish-PSModule for explicit release control Process-PSModule#265

New ReleaseType input parameter

A new ReleaseType input allows you to explicitly control the release behavior:

Value	Description
Release	Create a stable release (default)
Prerelease	Create a prerelease
None	Do not create any release

This input is designed to work with Get-PSModuleSettings, which pre-calculates the appropriate release type based on your workflow context:

- uses: PSModule/Publish-PSModule@v2
  with:
    APIKey: ${{ secrets.PSGALLERY_API_KEY }}
    ReleaseType: ${{ fromJson(inputs.Settings).Publish.Module.ReleaseType }}
    AutoCleanup: ${{ fromJson(inputs.Settings).Publish.Module.AutoCleanup }}

Restructured workflow execution

The action now runs in three separate phases, each executing only when needed:

1. Initialize Publish Context (init.ps1) – Calculates version, validates inputs, and stores context in environment variables
2. Publish Module (publish.ps1) – Downloads artifact, updates manifest, publishes to PSGallery, and creates GitHub release (runs only when ShouldPublish is true)
3. Cleanup Prereleases (cleanup.ps1) – Deletes old prerelease tags (runs only when ShouldCleanup is true)

This separation means the action skips unnecessary steps. For example, when a PR is closed without merging, the workflow can run cleanup independently without downloading artifacts or attempting to publish.

Backward compatibility

The ReleaseType parameter defaults to Release, maintaining current behavior for merged PRs targeting the default branch. Existing workflows continue to work without modification.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR introduces a new ReleaseType input parameter that provides explicit control over release creation, replacing the previous automatic detection based on pull request state and branch information. The feature enables callers (typically Get-PSModuleSettings) to specify whether to create a Release, Prerelease, Cleanup, or None.

Changes:

• Added ReleaseType input parameter to action.yml with default value 'Release'
• Removed automatic detection logic for release types based on PR state, merge status, and target branch
• Added validation for the ReleaseType parameter with support for four values: Release, Prerelease, Cleanup, None
• Updated logging to display ReleaseType instead of PR state details

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 6 comments.

File	Description
action.yml	Adds ReleaseType input parameter definition and environment variable mapping
scripts/helpers/Publish-PSModule.ps1	Replaces automatic release type detection with explicit ReleaseType input handling and validation

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